Elizabeth is in Fiji!: 2015

Bula Re everyone!!

I am here to catch you all up on November events here in Fiji!

Swearing-In

In early September, the new group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Fiji arrived in country. After two months of training and a host-stay, similar to what I did, they were officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers in early November. As a show of good faith, a lot of us veteran volunteers went down to the capital to support the new crew as they took their oath and made the transition from ‘trainees’ to ‘volunteers.’ After the swear-in, a few of the other northern volunteers and I escorted the new guys to their sites, helped them get settled in and welcome them to the north!

Obama came to Swearing In!

Me and my fellow northern volunteers. In Fiji, it is tradition for people from the same place or family to wear matching fabrics when going to an event. It is called 'kalavata.' Here we are wearing kalavata, representing the North!

New group of volunteers taking their oath!

Diwali

Diwali is the Hindu ‘Festival of Lights.’ Fiji’s population is about 45% Indo-Fijian, and about 90% of those are Hindu. That means that Diwali is a very widely celebrated holiday here in Fiji, so much that it is a public holiday. Diwali is probably the biggest Hindu holiday of the year and therefore causes a lot of excitement. Diwali season is the closest thing in Fiji that I can relate to Christmas season in America. The whole month leading up to Diwali, people prepare their houses, do their shopping, decorate their homes in lights, and get together with their family. Diwali is my favorite holiday in Fiji. The celebration is like a mix between Halloween, Christmas, and 4^th of July. It is customary or every household to make a ton of indian sweets to give to other families when they come by to visit (kind of like giving out candy on Halloween). Each house covers their house in lights and candles and all night we shoot fireworks and firecrackers. This year I spent Diwali with one of my nurses at the Health Centre and her family!

Tradition to put mango leaves over the doorways

My nurse Ashika!

Some Indian sweets!

Making Bara! My absolute favorite

We dye rice different colors and make patterns out of it! This one took her hours.

Saree's always make me feel fancy

Candles and lights everywhere!

Thanksgiving

I hosted Thanksgiving in Dreketi this year! I never would have expected that my first time hosting Thanksgiving I would be having 21 people and we’d be cooking 12 chickens in a traditional Fijian earth oven, or ‘lovo.’ It was great having all the volunteers together and officially welcoming the new group to the island. I think all the locals here in Dreketi also had a great time celebrating an American holiday with us and were excited by all the new visitors. I could not have done Thanksgiving without their help with building a shed, bringing me firewood, dropping off extra food, and helping us prepare the lovo. The day after Thanksgiving we all went for an island picnic and spent the day soaking up some much needed salt and sun!

The boys building me a shed. It is customary to build a shed when there are big events like weddings and funerals to make room for all the visitors. The boys thought it would be a good idea to build me one since so many people were coming, they were right!

Cooking on the open fire

Thanksgiving food madness in my kitchen

PCV's Caitlin and Emily cooking up a storm!

Hanging out in the shed

Literally 'buckets' of chicken. Turkey doesn't exist in Fiji so we had to settle for chickens!

Master Ropate handling chickens in my laundry room

Our earth oven, or Lovo.

Making mashed potatoes on an open fire.

When there are 25 people over and you run out of cups, PCV's get creative and drink out of cans.

Thanksgiving Dinner!

Waiting for our boats

Me and aciku (my sister) Carissa on Nikanika Island. I love this girl so much!

Camp GLOW

After Thanksgiving, I and 9 other volunteers packed up from my house and headed down to Bua Province where we hosted a week long girls empowerment camp. Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a global Peace Corps initiative being done all over the world. Bua Province has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in Fiji, so we planned this camp to empower young women and hopefully reduce the rate of teen pregnancy. Overall, we had about 35 girls between the ages of 14-16 come and spend the week with us at camp. Each morning we had educational sessions, teaching everything from goal setting and decision making to reproduction 101 and condom negotiating. In the afternoons we would have activities such as tye-dying, painting, and scavenger hunting. Although it was an exhausting week and a lot of work, it was worth it in the end because the girls had a great time and hopefully learned something new!

Beautiful view from Bua College. Our campsite for the week!

Gettin Artsy

Tye-dying!

Painting the girls' hostel!

Closing Ceremony... 'Go forth and GLOW'

Camp GLOW

And as always, some extra pictures from the month!

Laundry day in Fiji

On the ferry to the mainland

Fijian tattoo gun...pen with a motor and a battery....

Ready to seriously rest after an exhausting couple weeks!

Loloma mai Viti! And see you in 9 days AMERICA!!!!!

This past week the health centre team and I experienced a perfect example of what it means to work in public health in Fiji. The Dreketi Health Centre medical area covers a population of about 5000, spread apart 12 villages and 42 settlements. Technically, every year we are supposed to visit each village and settlement at least once. With a staff of only 3, this is a very difficult undertaking, so we decided to prioritize with visiting each village.

This past week we checked off our final village for the year, and it was our most remote village.

To get to this village we started by driving on the main (paved) road about 45 minutes, from there we turned off and headed down a dirt road for about another 30-45 minutes. We then got to a junction where there was a small forestry research station. At this point, we were already deep in the “interior” of the island, meaning we were basically surrounded by jungle at this point, it’s also extremely wet and rainy in this part of the interior. At the research station we stopped and asked a few of the workers how the road was and if we would be able to get there in our truck. They promptly responded “absolutely not,” so naturally we ignored them and continued on our way. The road to the village started out not too bad but it wasn’t long before we got to the hills where there was such deep mud that the car couldn’t go. Determined to get to this village, the doctor and I got out and started pushing the truck over the muddy hills. Eventually, we decided we couldn’t take the car any further so we set out on foot. Barefoot, with backpacks full of medicines and supplies on our backs we began our trek to the village.

Then, like a vision, two of the village boys appeared by horseback. We gave them all our gear and let them take it to the village for us. As we were going up and down hills through the mud we were all slipping and sliding and falling all the way to the village, even the horses were sliding down the hills. After about two hours we finally arrived at the village, covered in mud, rain, and sweat ready to get to work.

Although this village was so hard to get to, it ended up being one of the most rewarding. Because of how remote it is, this village gets hardly any visitors so they were all so excited to have us there. The first thing they did was give us all a change of clothes and a hearty lunch.

It’s days like this that I think about how much these nurses and doctors do for their patients. Not many professionals back in America would be willing to push trucks out of mud, and hike for hours through the rainforest just to get to a few patients. But this is what it means to work in public health in Fiji.